A Report On The E-C Translation Of Modern China(Excerpts)

Sinological research has gradually become a major research field in academic community in recent years.Sinological works are helpful to the study of Chinese history,and they can help readers see Chinese history from the perspective of others.The author selected Modern China,a Sinological work written by the British missionary Joseph Edkins during his stay in China,as the material for this study.The book clearly records the conditions of modern Chinese society in detail from the aspects of humanities,customs,agriculture,climate,medicine and so on.It is a non-fiction work and belongs to the historical text.The translation of Modern China is guided by Hans Vermeer’s Skopos theory.Vermeer believes that translation is a discourse produced for a specific purpose and target audiences in the context of the target language.The purpose of the translation determines the strategies and methods of translation,however,the translator must follow the three rules,which include the skopos rule,the coherence rule and the fidelity rule.The communicative purpose of this translation is to help Chinese readers learn about Chinese history and culture from different perspectives.Then under the guidance of the skopos rule,the technical terms and cultural-loaded words are translated back into the conventional expressions to accurately convey the Chinese cultural elements in the original text to the target readers.Under the guidance of the coherence rule,the methods and skills such as split translation,combined translation and voice transformation can be used to achieve the intra-textual coherence.Under the guidance of fidelity rule,liberal translation and amplification can be used to achieve inter-textual coherence.The difficulties in translating and relevant translation strategies and methods guided by the Skopos theory are summarized in this report,it is expected that the experience of this translating practice can provide a reference for the translating practice of similar texts.Through the project,the author has also achieved a further understanding of Skopos theory and Sinological translating strategies.